Natural disasters by Jonathan Tay

The environmental issue that I will be addressing today is about natural disasters. I chose this topic because I felt that natural disasters are threatening many people’s lives and they are important to let people know about it. Another reason for selecting this topic is because they are many types of natural disasters such as heat waves, blizzards and hurricanes so. It would be quite easy to obtain photographs on natural disasters for my photo journal.

Natural disaster is the consequence of a natural hazard (e.g. volcanic eruption, earthquake, or landslide) which affects human activities. Human vulnerability, exacerbated by the lack of planning or appropriate emergency management, leads to financial, environmental or human losses. The resulting loss depends on the capacity of the population to support or resist the disaster, and their resilience. This understanding is concentrated in the formulation: "disasters occur when hazards meet vulnerability”. A natural hazard will hence never result in a natural disaster in areas without vulnerability, e.g. strong earthquakes in uninhabited areas. The term natural has consequently been disputed because the events simply are not hazards or disasters without human involvement. Earthquakes cause most tsunamis. An earthquake happens when the huge plates on the earth’s surface slide against each other. A strong underwater earthquake causes tsunamis by forcing large amounts of water up and down. Other events can cause tsunamis too. Falling rocks and dirt from huge landslides can also start tsunamis. Volcanoes that erupt in or near the ocean can also cause tsunamis. Very rarely, tsunamis are caused by large meteorites crashing into the ocean. When these events occur under the water, huge amounts of energy are released as a result of a quick upward bottom movement. For example, if a volcano eruption occurs, the ocean floor may very quickly move upward several hundred feet.

The picture I have chosen depicts a wrecked coastal village in Sumatra after after the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami. There were many lives lost and people were very sad after this natural disasters because many of their friends, relatives or family membrs had died.

The picture I have chosen shows a collapsed building in DuJinagYan after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Right after the devastating Sichuan earthquake of May 12, 2008, in which over 70,000 people lost their lives, officials rushed to deny that the massive Three Gorges Dam complex hundreds of kilometres downstream could have played any role in triggering the natural disaster.

The picture I have chosen depicts many cars trying very hard to get from one place to another.
Residents of low-lying towns stacked sandbags or grabbed belongings and evacuated Wednesday after a foot of rain pushed rivers and creeks out of their banks in the nation's midsection. At least 13 deaths had been linked to the weather, and three people were missing

All the cars in USA are having a hard time driving around.

The picture I have chosen depicts a few people standing on some fallen things to not step into the water. Many people managed to survive this incident because proper tsunami warning systems had set off an alarm to tell that a tsunami is coming.

The December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami took over 200,000 lives. Proper planning and a tsunami warning system could have saved thousands of lives.

The picture I have chosen depicts a man trying to find water during the drought.First drought then floods and again drought, weather is playing mockery with Australia. Green parkland has turned light brown with parched grounds, failing crops, water-thirsty land Australia is a story of how global warming stirs a cycle of extreme weather changes.

Australia is facing the worst-ever drought in its history. Flash flooding a few months ago seemed to have marginalized drought, which has again sprouted its head from the dark, desiccating Australian food bowl.

Some of the natural disasters are caused naturally such as cyclones and hurricanes. However, some other natural disasters are caused by men. These pictures are relevant to the issue because all the pictures whhich I have selected are one of the many types of natural disasters in the world.

People can overcome natural disasters such as tsunamis by setting up warning systems to warn people when and where tsunamis are going to strike next. As for earthquakes, people can try